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valve clearance

13K views 12 replies 9 participants last post by  lwyckoff 
#1 ·
Hi,

I'm doing my shims at the moment for the 24,000km service and ALL the valves were out, I get the feeling that most of you found that your valve clearances were in spec, jsut wondering more than anything else.

another thing is that I can only reuse 4 of the 16 shims, so I've got to swap 12 shims which costs A$80

it's almost to the point where it would have been just as expensive to get the dealer to service the bike, at least this way I can rest easy knowing that they're all spot on though.


oh I also found it useful to knock up a spreadsheet to calculate the new shim thickness, less chance for human error that way.



cheers

Ben.
 
#2 ·
Is this on a 954 or 929?  I've checked mine twice (16k/32k) and none were out of spec.  My friend's 929 went to 60k before 1 valve was out of spec.  The same friend has a 954 now and at 32k, almost all of them needed adjustment.  954 seems to run hotter too, which may or may not contribute to the valves needed more attention.

Can you put the spreadsheet file as an attachment? Might be handy for the rest of us here.
 
#4 ·
it's a 929. I guess I'm just a lucky lad having them all out at the 16K mile mark...

The spreadsheet is not very handsome, and the values for desired clearance are hard coded into the appropriate cells, I guess someone with an urge to improve it might want to have a cell that states the desired clearance for the inlet and exhaust valves and just refer to that, but this worked for me.

I've left my values in place so you can have a laugh at my misfortune. Obviously you'll need to juut delete the first two rows, if you delete all the rows you'll also lose the formula that's applied in a couple of rows.

I guess this will get you all started on the spreadsheet anyway, there are loads of ways to improve it but it did the trick for me


Cheers

Ben.
 
#5 ·
16k and 32k nothing needed adjusting. However after my spark plug ran away with the threads in the head at 42k, I discovered my cams were worn down. So I decided to go ahead and do a full valve job while I had the head out anyway.
 
#7 ·
G-Force Junkie : So if your valves were never out of adjustment, how could your cam have worn?  Perhaps is was undersized whenthe motor was assembled?
The heel of the cams were fine. It was just the lobes that wore, and not all of them. On #1 ex, the left one was spot on, while the right lobe was -.030'. The warranty company agreed with me that it had to be a manufacturing defect. The cam didn't appear to have the proper surface hardening on it. The journals in the head, holders and bearing surfaces of the cams looked great.
 
#9 ·
Well i just checked my valve clearances today. They all needed adjustment. mine were tight, expecially the exhaust valves. I'm setting them up on the loose side since my bike apparently tightened up over the first 21K miles. I had to order the shims which sucks, but i'll be glad to get it back together and sync the throttle bodies. She should be good to go for spring. So don't feel bad about yours being out after only 16K. I ran the piss out of mine and enjoyed every minute of it.
Lane
 
#13 ·
Hello Joel,

I have a 2000 CBR 929, and saw your walkthrough posted elsewhere. I have performed valve inspections and (when necessary) cam removals on other bikes that I own (VFR and a Ninja).

Things that are different this time. . . I was wondering if you have intake and exhaust valve clearance specs for this bike .. .. and I have not dealt with removal of camshafts for shim under bucket configuration on a bike that uses a cam chain (I have been blessed with gear driven cams for most which makes it easier). Thank you for your help.
 
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